Greetings from Eureka SuperKidz!

As the months pass and the academic year draws to an end, its time for us to reflect on all the people who made the Eureka program possible in so many villages in Tamil Nadu. Hopeful parents, hard working Eureka tutors and enthusiastic children Add some thoroughly researched material and learning programs designed to bring out the best in each child and put all this together form a holistic program assuring quality education for all. We would also like to bring to you a few other stories featuring different facets of our work in Eureka learning centres . Read on for news about our annual Eureka Science Quiz and methods adopted to ensure accurate impartial evaluation of our educational programs.
The Eureka Science Quiz, an annual event organized by the Eureka Child Foundation, celebrates National Science Day. As part of our innovative after school program to enhance learning skills in children, we encourage children studying in our Eureka learning centres take part in this event. This year more than 10000 children from 700 villages in 50 blocks and 10 districts of Tamilnadu participated in the village and block-level quizzes. The state-level final, a culmination of the district events, was held on the 9th of March, 2013 at the Infosys Campus, Tech Mahindra City. Over 250 children from different villages across Tamilnadu were chosen to participate in the state-level finals of the Eureka Science Quiz 2013 hosted by Infosys-Sneham volunteers at Mahindra world city at their campus. All the 50 teams competed in a written round in the morning session and the top 6 teams were selected for the next and final round which was conducted by Ravishankar. Mr. Siva Kumar, Head of the Mahindra World City, was present for the closing ceremony and distributed the prizes along with Mr. R. Natarajan, author of many childrens books, and Balaji Sampath, who said that such events would trigger the spark in children to take science seriously and excel in the subject. Children from Lalgudi block won the 1st prize, the 2nd prize went to children from Kalasapakkam, and the 3rd palce was shared by children from Chennai and Polur blocks.

More pictures are available at https://picasaweb.google.com/aidindia.in/EurekaScienceQuiz2013 Over the years, we have developed thorough and exhaustive evaluation procedures to bring out program results in a clear and detailed manner. However, our results gain more credibility when the evaluation is performed by an external source. The NCIS team has been evaluating our educational programs every year to give us much needed clarity about the direction our programs need to move in, to achieve desired results. This year too, they did an excellent job of evaluating over 5000 children from 85 schools, out of which 60 were program schools, and 25 were non-program schools. 35 people were given a 2-day state-level training in Chennai, which included a handson demonstration of our evaluation techniques in the field. This

A little effort pays great dividends!

In most of the villages, parents and children have a grueling work schedule through the day - household duties like cooking, looking after cattle, agricultural labors, gathering firewood and looking after children. Yet, in spite of all these hardships, education is not neglected. Our Eureka tutors, who live in the same villages, are no different from these hard working parents and children. We bring you a few hard working Eureka tutors and their success stories. Visalakshi & Egavalli, of Upparanthangal village, are two cheerful Eureka tutors. Visalakshi aspires to become a nurse while Egavalli wants to become a teacher. Their parents are daily wage labourers and the girls help out in domestic chores every day. Visalakshi feels that children are smarter these days and seem to pick up educational skills faster, yet they give priority to their household chores and neglect their education. So she takes the effort of going to her students houses if they dont attend classes at the centre. Egavalli, her elder sister, is pursuing a Bachelors degree in Botany. She has been a Eureka Tutor for the past 2 years, right from the day the program started. She feels by teaching the children of her village she is helping them face a more confident future. She happily tells us that the school realized the improvement in students after they started coming here, especially in Fractions operations. Their success story - For Anandhi and Puneetha, students at the Upparanthangal learning centre, evenings are busy as their mother expects the daughters to complete all their household chores by the time she returns from her work-shift at the factory nearby. They candidly admit that their tutors are not happy with their lack of punctuality and attendance, but they still ensure that they do their lessons well. The students attribute their success in Fraction operations and English to their tutors and finish a few worksheets with ease to demonstrate their skill in the subject. Venda is the first Eureka Tutor of Valandaraman village. She handles Classes 6, 7 and 8. She has taken on this role to help children of her village improve their educational skills. Her friendly attitude has won her the support of the parents of the village as well. She feels that the individual attention component of the Eureka learning program helps her to focus efficiently on the skill each child finds difficult to comprehend. She realized she was on the right track when she noticed children were attending classes at the centre regularly and were enjoying math, a notoriously disliked subject! Ironically, this Eureka Tutor was named venda meaning dont want in Tamil by her parents as they didnt want an additional girl child! Vendas success story - Pavithra and Kamal, both Class 8 students, are enthusiastic members of Vendas group. Pavithra and Kamal have been attending classes at the Eureka Centre for the past year. Over time, their respective Math teachers at school noticed their improvement and made it a point to mention it to both children. Pavithra has also improved her overall grades in school (grade B to grade A). Kamal is happy that the Eureka Centre helps with some much needed support in his education.

Please renew your support to your adopted villages!

Thanks to your support, we reached close to 40,000 children in 700 villages last year. We would like to ensure continued support to these children to enable them to realize their full potential. To renew your contribution, either online or through cheque, please visit the link: http://eureka.aidindia.in/donate.php Please write to us if you have any queries. Your support means a lot to us!